Wednesday, June 25

Hello little blog world. Did you miss us? Lots has happened since the blog was updated regularly. Here is the quick and dirty overview.

Thomas is now four. He was diagnosed with autism when he was two. We are getting ABA behavioral therapy in our home about 18 hours a week (3-4 hour sessions 5 days a week). When there is no school he has been getting two sessions a day. He is progressing really well in all areas except verbal language. But, we know that its never too late - and there have even been studies that many children with autism still learn to talk all the way up to age 10.

Alice is going to be in first grade in August. She is a talented little artist. I am sure you will see some of her work on the blog. She loves My Little Pony and Pokemon. She is a great helper, but would probably play games on a tablet or watch movies all day if we let her.

Danno is attending BYU-Idaho online. He didn't take this semester off, poor guy. It is at the point in the semester where if he stopped completing assignments he would still pass the class. Since its easily his third time taking English 101, this is an exciting milestone. He is also now a civil servant. He works full time for the state and commutes in a carpool to get to the capitol - meaning he is gone from home about 10.5 hours a day.
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Rebecca is also attending BYU-Idaho online, but she took the Spring semester off knowing that the kids being home all day for 3 months would keep her busy. But, the blog has been an itch - a reminder that it used to be an enjoyable hobby - and a reminder that she doesn't even keep a regular paper journal these days. So, she has started the blog again as a birthday project / goal.

(And yes, I wrote a whole paragraph about myself in third person. It was fun.)

Saturday, May 28

Its not safe. Don't put a box on top of a chair to reach something taller, get a bigger chair. Stacking your bases is bad news.

Daniel has learned this lesson. We will learn it again when we get the bills.

He fell off of a ladder that was on top of scaffolding (that I specifically told him was a bad idea and he paid no heed because he thought it was silly worrying because I have a fear of heights).

We called 911, they ok'd him to get up and let me drive him in the car to the ER (hey hey saved $600 go us). Lost 3 diaper inserts from soaking up the blood on his leg, and the tie we used to tie his leg up when we realized it was bleeding.

At the ER we waited over an hour to get xrays. Then he was in xray for about 30 minutes and had at least 8 xrays of his legs as well as a chest xray. About 10 all up.

14ish stitches (some inside) and a 7cm long wound. Bruises out the yinyang. He gets to go back in 10 days to have the stitches removed.

Monday, May 9

Its been a long month since I last posted. Weaning off the postpartum meds is going rather well. Our yard is looking pretty. Our home is cleaner than it has been thanks to having more energy and less of a blah feeling. We have had a bit of trials though. What wil follow is 95% rant about the nusiance neighbors.

We did some gardening around the house Easter weekend and out out lots of mulch and did lots of spring yarn work. Then I went to take a shower and Daniel turned on the hose to spray off the back patio where we repotted some plants. Only we found out the outside spigot had froze over the winter and the living room and computer room were flooded.

After finally getting the carpets clean and dry and not funky smelling, Alice and Thomas brought in a bucket of compost (i.e. composted manure) and painted the computer room with it. You read that right, they painted my clean carpets with cow dung. So we got to clean the carpets again! Fun times.

But that has motivated me to consolidate and get rid of things. We also went through the bins of baby clothes in the garage attic and gave away most of them. Only 3 of the bins were so soaked in cat pee (from our neighbors cats that she lets in her side of the garage, *sigh* sharing a garage is no fun). But anyway, we emptied several bins!

ANd now for the nusiance neighbors

The neighbors let their dog run loose leashless and it was over between our house and another neighbor's. First We tried to see if they were outside with the dog, they weren't. Then another neighbor took the dog to them and inside their house because they wanted to walk their horse (its a really big dog, think Marmaduke). And less than 10 minutes later the dog was back outside and at the side of our house digging in the flower beds. So we called animal control. Animal control went by several times and I guess didn't see the dog.

Then it was out AGAIN so we called again. But animal control was off duty for the day so they sent by cops, and guess what the dog was loose and the cops talked with them and gave them a warning after she dragged the barking dog in.

Then last Thursday or Friday I was in the backyard with the kids and thought someone smelled like poo. And found out they had taken a spatula from the utensil drawer and had been digging in the garden. This is nothing new, except this time they were digging around 2 really large balls of poop.

I was furious. I mean for real, the last time we called the cops on the neighbor they threw trash in our back yard, but animal waste? That was a whole new level. After fuming and venting to Daniel and not letting the kids outside, I decided to give the neighbors the benefit od the doubt and triple bagged the poo and the spatula put it in the trash.

Well guess what happened that night. You got it, a party! The loud music started at like 8pm, but it wasn't intolerable. Around 11pm the drunken hollering started in the back so we called the police. Previous incidents have led me to believe that if we don't the party will continue intil 2, 3, or even 4am and I will be stuck cleaning up cigarette butts and beer cans from my yard and I was not willing to deal with that. Within 15 minutes the party was broken up and everyone left.

Daniel felt bad about it, but I feel no remorse. We have lived there 4 years and every time we have tried to contact them they have been completely unreasonable at the time because usually they are completely drunk. Clearly they don't watch the commercials that say Drink RESPONSIBLY.

Saturday we went to the store and bought some flowers to plant in the back yard and come home to the neighbor guy (who supposedly doesn't love there but whose car has been there every day for at least a year now, so my guess is he just doesn't pay any rent to live there) coming out with some dog I have never seen before and not on the leash. The dog came up to me at the car and I asked him to put the dog on a leash and he said the dog won't hurt anyone but there is no way I would be getting my small children out of the car around a strange animal that isn't being restrained.

He had also swept all the went leaves that had been sitting on their side of the driveway over to ours. When I said something he denied it. I could see the wet spot on the driveway where the leaves used to sit. I was pissed.

To make it worse, Daniel laughed at me. Not the way i want to deal with mother's day weekend. Cleaning up after 25 year olds and getting laughed at by my husband.

So I went in majorly pissed and ranting about how I was ready to take them to small claims court. So the guy tells Lisa (whose sister owns the place) that we are talking about taking them to small claims court. And when Daniel has been out there a good 15 minutes cleaning up leaves and sticking them in a bag to take back to them she comes, and takes them all and dumps them on her side of the driveway.

She also insists she didn't tell him to sweep stuff onto our side of the driveway and was adament that they didn't throw poo over the fence.

You know what I don't even care any more. I will just becalling the police any any every time they do anything against the law. I will also be documenting it all and getting copies of police reports. I didn;t even light the dog crap on fire and leave it on their doorstep.

I just hope this crap ends before we have to sell our house. I don't want to have to put down in the sellers disclosure that the neighbor has loud parties all the time and they litter party trash in the back yard all the time. But yeah, this is the start of the documentation. Good times. Not really

Monday, April 18

Well, we bucked up and got our busted AC unit replaced. A little less than $3K. But we have a 10 year parts and labor warranty.

And the fridge stopped working. I tried pouring milk on cereal this morning and it looked like I was pouring yogurt on the cereal. The soonest Sears can fix it is 10 days from today. Daniel is going to try to see if its something he can fix today. Its either the heating unit or the timer for the defrost.

We ended up eating pop corn for breakfast.

At least we have lots of flowers. I am thinking we will plant another 100 bulbs this fall. Havign piles of blooms is nice. We have a dozen on the mantle.

Monday, March 21

The semester is halfway over! And that means the torture that is also known as Spring Semester is halfway complete. Thank goodness because the children declared mutiny and are slowly dragging me to mental death.

Alice is still having problems going to Sharing Time in primary.

Thomas has started finger painting with 'paint' he makes himself. Ick!

And March started with a Grapefruit Incident where I was reminded about Cyp3a4 inhibitors and got the lovely experience of antidepressant overdose. It was a nice week or so oh headaches before I thought that maybe it was because of grapefruit.

And Daniel finally called to get estimates for replacing the AC unit that crapped out last summer and found out they have to come measure every room INSIDE the house before they can sell us an AC unit. Which means I get to clean the entire house so strangers can come wander around it. Whoopdeedoo. I am not pleased about that since i know I will be the one cleaning it all, but there is no way I am living another summer without air conditioning. We spent more running fans to keep the temperatures tolerable than we did running a 30 year old AC unit.

But I am hoping this blog post guilts Daniel into at least helping me clean. Or maybe he can just learn that shoving them on the floor is not an appropriate reaction to clean laundry on top of a made bed. Or maybe i will just make him clean up the poop fingerpaint that Thomas left while I was digging through the mountain of laundry on the floor because he didn't fold any. Ognore me I am bitter and surrounded by obnoxious children and no longre happily medicated

Sunday, February 27

February has been interesting. A few snow storms. A few days in the 70s and today we had thunder fog. I didn't just make that up either. And lots of sickness. TONS. We all had colds that wiped us out at the beginning of the month, got better just in time to go to church and catch a new round of sickness. Yippee! We have been to the pediatrician's office 3 times in the last week and will be going in tomorrow because Thomas is covered in a measles like rash. Hooray! Enjoy the pics.